To Remember You By
by Joon
Summary: Ianto is reminded that Torchwood rarely lets you have personal time, even when you need it to say a proper goodbye. And being efficient can work against you sometimes. A related tag to my "Steps Closer" fic.


While not required, reading at least the "Linger" chapter of my "Steps Closer" fic might clarify who Aunt Winn is.

* * *

"Come on, sweetheart," Gwen cooed. "It's your favorite."

Actually, she had no idea if the sack of meat now lying untouched by Myfanwy's feet was the pterodactyl's favorite. But it was liberally covered in the sauce that she liked and Gwen figured the presence of the sauce pretty much made anything Myfanwy's favorite dinner of choice.

But the dinosaur folded her large wings back and squawked stubbornly instead. Her beady eyes stared at Gwen, whom she obviously recognized but not with the task of providing food for her.

Ever since the loss of Tosh and Owen, they'd all been trying to spread out and pick up the work as much as possible. None of them would be earning medical degrees or become tech experts anytime soon, but they were all now a little more competent in those areas. Feeding Torchwood's pets wasn't a job earth's survival depended on. But it was still a job and Gwen was determined to do it.

Taking the retractable stick, Gwen pushed the food closer. "Be a good girl," she urged. "Ianto'll be back in tomorrow and he'll be cross if you don't-"

"Gwen! Gwen!" Jack's voice bellowed from somewhere below.

Sighing, Gwen backed up and stuck her head out from Myfanwy's perch. "Yes?"

Jack stood in the middle of the Hub wearing his greatcoat. "Got a call in from the police. They've got a body that might be up our street. I'm on my way out."

"Do you need me to come with you?"

"No, but I'll call you if I do," he answered. "Stick around here in case Ianto checks in."

Gwen glanced at her wristwatch. It was only half past one and she doubted the funeral would be over already. But she nodded anyway. "Okay, I'll be here."

Jack eyed the stick in her hands and the noticeably frustrated expression on her face. "Trying to feed Myfanwy?" he inquired.

"No, I enjoy meditating in her nest holding this meat stick," Gwen snapped. "Of course I'm trying to feed her. Ianto's not here to do it."

"Taking over his snarking duties too?" he asked with a grin.

Gwen waved him off briskly. "Have fun," she ordered sweetly.

"Call me if he-"

"I know."

* * *

A glass that contained what looked like a large amount of scotch was set in front of Ianto.

"To be consumed only at weddings and funerals," quoted Roger who sat down across from Ianto holding a glass of his own. "That's what Winnifred used to say."

"Did she?" Ianto inquired. "I didn't know that." He felt like he'd been saying that a lot these past few days. He gave Roger his thanks and pulled the glass closer.

"Your aunt always kept a bottle just in case," said Roger, loosening his tie. "Never touched alcohol any other time. Woman drank coffee by the fistfuls, though. I could only make her cut back by hiding the bloody coffee filters from her."

Not for the first time in last three days, Ianto stared at Roger Cannon and tried to draw a mental picture of him with his Aunt Winn. It had been difficult at first, the notion of his bossy, capricious, stubborn aunt settling down with Roger, who by all accounts looked like a man likely to be run over by someone like her.

But then again, Ianto considered, he hadn't really seen nor spoken to his aunt in close to six years. Plenty of things could change in that time. Plenty of things did, apparently. While in London, Ianto had always peppered his weeks with half-thoughts of calling his aunt or emailing her. But the notions were almost always left as just that, notions. He managed it a little more shortly after his mother passed away, but after a few months, they lost contact again. Whenever she called, it had never been a good time.

And then after London, it had only gotten worse.

Even after Canary Wharf, after Lisa, after Jack going and coming back and life settling into about as much of a routine as it ever would, there never seemed to be enough time. And with Aunt Winn having moved to Australia by that point, there was the time difference to consider. Or so Ianto told himself when he was in the mood for denial. The truth was a phone call with Aunt Winn would have taken all of one hour and a child's ability for additions to account for the time difference.

Still, he figured he'd call her one day. She might call him again as well, despite having little luck in the past. She had his home number and she had kept her old house in Cardiff. He had thought maybe one day she'd come back for a visit.

But the day Ianto got a call, it was from an Australian named Roger Cannon. There had been a car accident.

The Rift paused for no one. Certainly not for the private lives of Torchwood's personnel. And the days following the phone call had been nothing but incident after incident as the Rift alarm seemed to ring as soon as they stepped foot into the Hub after a mission. With Owen and Tosh now gone and no one yet to fill their spots, Ianto had been lucky to even find a minute to get his aunt's affairs in order and arrange the funeral with Roger's help. Roger hadn't even been married to her, though they had been living together for a year.

"I was planning on asking her next month on her birthday," he'd told Ianto the first day they'd met. Ianto didn't doubt it.

It became apparent very quickly that had Roger any knowledge of funeral homes in Wales, he could have done everything himself. He'd known Winnifred's favorite flowers, the kind of coffin she'd have wanted, the fact that she didn't want the event to be any sort of fuss, certainly no long biblical passages, please. During every step of the planning process, Roger had known what would have been right. Any lulls had been taken up by his numerous fond memories about Winnifred.

With each passing second in Roger's presence, Ianto felt like his Aunt Winn, the woman who had half-taken care of him after his father's passing and who'd encouraged him onto University, had become a complete stranger to him.

Thinking on it now, Ianto took a large swallow of his drink. The funeral was now over, but most of the attendees had gone to a pub afterwards. Roger said Winnifred would have approved. Ianto had to take his word on it.

"Are you staying in Cardiff for a few days?" Ianto asked.

Roger shook his head. "Nah. I only came for Winnifred. She fell in love with Australia, but she told me she wanted to go back home one day." The older man blinked furiously into his glass suddenly. "Now she has," he said, quietly.

They sat together in a private silence, each man lost to his own thoughts for a moment. Finally, Roger rubbed the heel of his hand against his eye and downed the last of his drink. "I wanted to thank you for letting me see the house before you packed it," he said. "And for the photos."

Something hard and sharp twisted in Ianto's stomach at the mention of the house. His aunt had kept her home in Cardiff, despite her move. As impractical as it had been, she'd stubbornly held on to the house where she'd grown up with Ianto's father, having inherited it.

Somewhere in between saving the world from a hostile alien takeover and assisting a benign alien race claiming sanctuary on earth, Ianto had visited the house once with Roger. Even during that one bit of allotted time, he'd been making lists in his head of what needed to get done to get the Inari set up with false identities. He'd tried not to seem like he was rushing Roger when the man had carefully selected a few items from the house to take with him back to Australia.

After the one visit, Ianto had arranged for a company to pack and store away his aunt's things while the house was quickly sold by an extremely competent real estate agent who found a buyer almost immediately. It had seemed the most practical and efficient course of action at the time. Ianto didn't need the house and he definitely didn't have time to pack anything. As it was he'd been forced to make the personal calls in between while running from one end of Cardiff to the other on missions, thanks to the Rift. But now looking back on it, a horrible regret seeped in his mind.

Still, it was too late now anyway. Her things were packed. The house was gone.

He broke out of his thoughts when Roger rose to his feet to put on his coat. The older man gave him an unexpectedly kind pat on his shoulder. "It was good to meet you, Ianto. Your aunt spoke very highly of you."

"Did she?" Ianto tried to ignore how desperate his voice sounded.

"Of course she did," Roger replied, his gaze direct, sincere. "She was proud of you."

He supposed he'd have to take Roger's word on that as well.

* * *

It was close to seven when Ianto returned to the Plass. There was a chance that the day was officially done for everyone else by now, but he'd driven somewhat blankly after Roger had left and found he'd automatically come back to the Hub.

To Torchwood. Because that was all that was left now. He'd often thought that in the past, but now with his aunt gone, that truly was it for family.

_I'm the last Jones of my kind, _thought Ianto, lingering by the pier near the entrance of the Tourists' Office. He felt an inappropriate laughter build up in his chest. Over hundreds upon hundreds of Joneses out there and he was now related to none of them.

Ianto leaned against the rails and stared out toward the Bay. He tried to recall the last time he'd spoken to Aunt Winn and couldn't remember exactly. He could remember her coffee and a thick gray cardigan she used to wear all the time. And the floral scent of her shampoo that he could always detect when she'd hugged him. But even those details seemed flimsy and withered. He'd once been so close to her, her every feature so sharp in his mind when he'd been younger. Where had she gone? Where had he gone?

"How was the funeral?"

Ianto started violently at the sudden voice by his ear.

"Whoa, easy," Jack chuckled lightly, putting a hand on his arm.

"Jesus," Ianto muttered. He took a large breath and let it out. "I didn't notice you."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "That's a first. I'm known for my entrances."

Ianto gave a small smile, too tired to think of a quick response. "How was everything today?" he asked instead.

"Oh, usual stuff," Jack answered, casually. "Police reluctantly asking for our help. The good Detective Swanson not so reluctantly tearing my head off for removing evidence from the crime scene without alerting her first."

Ianto frowned. "Did you? Jack, you'd told her on the last conference call there'd be a protocol for that. She's not going to be any easier to work with if you keep breaking the agreements you two set-"

He paused when Jack gently gripped his face with both his hands on either side. For a second he thought Jack was going to quiet him with a kiss. Instead the captain only leaned close, not making actual contact, but forcing Ianto to meet his gaze.

"Ianto."

"What?"

"Stop working."

The exasperated look on Jack's face was mostly belied by the fondness in his smile. Ianto stared for a moment before lowering his eyes.

"I haven't worked all day," Ianto muttered.

"Then stop trying to make up for it during off hours. Office is closed."

"Torchwood is never closed," Ianto pointed out. "We don't do off hours," he added, missing the bitter quality of his own tone.

Jack didn't say anything to that. His hands left Ianto's face, but idly smoothed over his shoulders, trailing over the tense muscles beneath layers of wool. "Hungry?"

Ianto wasn't. But he wasn't all that keen on going home either. "We could try the Italian place."

"Let's go."

* * *

"We should name a building after her," Jack announced halfway through the dinner. "We could do that. It'd take just a phone call."

"That would be a gross misuse of power," said Ianto.

"Hi, have you met us? We're Torchwood."

"What exactly would you say?" asked Ianto. "Earth's safety depends on us naming this building after Winnifred Jones?"

"I'll look at it as in honor of services rendered," Jack replied. "Winnifred Jones, the woman who through her fine teaching of her nephew has made it possible for us to consume exquisite coffee without which earth would have surely fallen long ago since we probably would have all been sleeping at our stations."

"I'm not sure if her imparting to me her coffee-making skill is how Aunt Winn would want to be remembered," Ianto mused.

"We'll make it a big plaque. Fit more stuff on. Whatever she'd like."

"You'd have to ask Roger Cannon," said Ianto, the barely created good mood vanishing. He toyed listlessly with the stem of his mostly drunken wine glass.

"The boyfriend?"

"He was going to become her fiancé next month," Ianto replied. He made a sound that was halfway between a mirthless chuckle and a cough. "Aunt Winn was surrounded by men with bad timing." Ianto emptied his glass and pushed at the mostly uneaten plate of lasagna, keeping his eyes on the slowly congealing pasta.

"Is he going back to Sydney?" asked Jack.

Ianto nodded. "He's leaving tomorrow. He took some photos of her from the old house," he informed randomly.

"That was nice of you to give them to him."

"He deserved them. He deserved the house. I should have given it to him. He'd have known what to do," Ianto thought aloud.

"I kept meaning to call her. I keep telling myself that but I never would have. Every week there's a chance the world could end or I get killed, but I never took a minute. I kept thinking I was too busy."

Torchwood could swallow up its employees, but Ianto knew he hadn't even put up a fight. He'd used Torchwood to ease a lot of deep injuries, but then had let it steal all his time in return. Even to the point where he'd had put it first above taking the time to properly pay respects to his last remaining family member. And one who'd done so much for him even when he'd been young, stupid and ungrateful.

He shouldn't have let his aunt become so unknown to him that he hadn't even recognized her through Roger's eyes. He shouldn't have let themselves drift away from each other.

He should have kept the house. Or at least pack it himself.

The reds and yellows of the lasagna blurred and blended together. They spread back apart a little when Ianto blinked, feeling the scotch from earlier and the several glasses of wine.

He felt Jack squeeze the hand that wasn't uselessly occupying a fork. "Hey-"

"Could we go?" Ianto pleaded, cutting him off. "I…I'd like to go."

Jack nodded and signaled for the bill.

* * *

Ianto dozed lightly in the car while Jack drove.

He was roused from the half-sleep when the SUV came to an abrupt halt at their destination. Ianto blinked in the unexpectedly poor light. "This isn't my flat," he stated. His street was an incredibly well-lit one.

"Nope," Jack said next to him. "Thought I'd make a quick detour."

Ianto opened his mouth to argue when he noticed where they were parked. It was a small street, across from which was the familiar, two story house with a sign displayed in front indicating its sold status.

"Jack, why are we here?" Ianto sighed.

"To have a look around."

"The house's been sold," said Ianto, tiredly. "And I'm sure the new owners don't want us prowling around, Torchwood or no."

Even in the dim light, he saw the white of Jack's bright grin. "Don't worry. I know the new owner real well and he won't mind." Jack held up a set of keys in his hand and popped his door open. Ianto stared after him for a moment in shock before scrambling out as well.

"So, you know I'd been thinking," Jack continued once outside. "So many people tell me the benefits of owning real estate and yet I never did anything about it."

"You bought my aunt's house?" Ianto gaped at him.

"Yup. But now I'm having some intense buyer's remorse." Jack strode across the street to the front of the house and turned, spreading his arms. "I mean, look at it. It's a great house, but what am I going to do with it? When am I actually going to live here? So I was hoping to fob it off on you," he finished, holding out the keys.

Ianto stared, not taking them. "You bought me a house?"

"I was always a sucker for old houses. Real estate agent told me two generations of a family grew up here."

"Jack, I can't take it," Ianto protested, still trying to process the fact that somehow Jack had bought the house without him realizing.

Walking back over, Jack took his hand and pressed the keys into them. "Think of it as payment for overtime," he said, softly. "I know how much time the job takes up. On normal days we barely get any sleep and the last few days have been the busiest we've had, especially with it being just the three of us."

Wrapping an arm around Ianto's shoulders, Jack steered toward the house. "If you'd had the time, if Torchwood hadn't been bearing down, you would have thought about it," he continued. "You wouldn't have sold the house. You would have seen that you loved it too much. Just like you loved your Aunt Winn. So, I'm just rewinding things a little."

"You bought my aunt's house…"

Jack chuckled. "Yeah, I think we established that."

"When did you find time to do this?"

"I'm way more resourceful then you give me credit for, Mr. Jones."

"I can't just take it," Ianto said, firmly. "I'll have to buy it from you or…"

This time Jack did press his lips to his to quiet him. "Alright," he agreed, gently. "I'll hold onto it. But it'll just be sitting here and you know what my housekeeping skills are like. So take the keys and look in on it every once in awhile for me, okay?"

After a beat, Ianto nodded, silently gripping the keys in his hand.

Jack smiled. "Good. Now, how about you give me the grand tour? I was told your aunt and dad grew up here. I want to see the famous coffee cups and tailoring kits where it all began."

"It'll be a pretty quick tour. All of her things are in storage. The place is empty."

"Oh, yeah. About that," said Jack with an inching grin. "I had the storage people put everything back."

"You what?" Ianto asked in disbelief.

"They were surprisingly nice about it. But I put it to the power of my charming ways," said Jack with his excess of confidence. Seeing the shock on Ianto's face, he laughed lightly. "Hey, I said rewinding. That means just as it was before."

Ianto stared at him for a moment before he closed the small distance between them and hugged Jack tightly. "Thank you. I…thank you," he whispered.

"You're welcome."

THE END


End file.
